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10/5/13

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is on doctor's order to rest for one month, as from today. This morning she reportedly suffered an irregular heartbeat and a tension headache and as a result, was taken to the Fundación Favaloro clinic (Argentina's top heart hospital) where she was diagnosed with cardiovascular (UPDATE: the breaking story has changed diagnosis to) brain blood vessel damage and told to take a month off to recover.

UPDATE: more details now appearing and the diagnosis is that of a chronic subdural hematoma. You can read about that herebut what we can say is that according to today's reports CFK suffered a bang on the head on August 12th and received a diagnosis for it at the time. The timing of just under two months between then and now is typical for this problem.

The prognosis looks like it requires surgery, possibly a relatively simple drainage of the hematoma.

UPDATE 2: Coincidentally (????) August 12th was the day after her big election loss this year.

Junior Canadian Resource isn't a new blog, but in the last couple of months its owner (DaYvan Cowboy, a fine moniker imho) has been posting more often and it's now a part of the blogroll over there on the right. Today we get this post from the site, which takes a look at Mahdia Gold. It's well worth the time of anyone into junior explorecos, as on the one hand it's a detailed breakdown of how the management behind Mahdia (and its previous incarnations) ripped off the people who invested in the junior, while at the same time may remind the reader of many other similar cases. The post is done well, shows more detail than I tend to do round here these days (time when I'd put together a thousand words on stupid BS juniors like MTO.v) and as such, the process of the scam is laid out clearly. Read it and you'll be one step closer to avoiding the plethora of sharks and assholes that inhabit this most sordid of business sectors.

10/4/13

Bobby Genovese is lending Liberty Silver (LSL.to) a million dollars. There are really very shameless people who are going to read this post and then the LSL NR, check the details of the deal and think, "Wow, now that's fuckin' shameless".Here's the link, here's the first part:

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Oct. 4, 2013) -Liberty Silver Corp. (LSL.TO) ("Liberty" or the "Company") has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with BG Capital Group Inc. for a total of U.S. $1.0 million debt financing (the "Loan") subject to a number of conditions, including due diligence, definitive documentation and approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange (the "Exchange"). The Loan provides for an immediate advance of U.S. $50,000 with U.S. $200,000 to be advanced at closing and execution and delivery of definitive documentation, U.S. $250,000 at the end of the first quarter following the closing date, and two further advances of U.S. $250,000 at the end of each of the next two following quarters.

h/t @fbonacci(aka Pfeifer), an excellent person to have on your twitterstream. Pfeifer put this up on twitter a few days ago and I was luckily online at the time and with an hour of silent office in my immediate future. So it was "oh! look at that! been a long time!" and click thru. That turned out to be an excellent decision as I've never heard it played better, with a build-up to the magnificent climax that gets your heart racing. Man, that audience must have been blown away.

You have the Vienna Philharmonic in the year 2000, you have Valery Gergiev waving the baton, you have a kickass 47 minutes of music waiting for you. Enjoy time.

A Reuters reporter visits the location of the Syria sarin gas attack and files this report. If you only read one thing today, it's this. The magnitude of the piece begins to sink in after the second read-through.

1) Jennings covers Minera IRL (IRL.to) (MIRL.L) and likes the stock too, with a 75c target price on the current ~25c stock.

2) The Jennings analyst is Kwong-Mun Achong Low and I'll bet you a full dollar to a lowly donut that his Mandarin Chinese is up to scratch.

3) IRL has one producing gold mine and two others under development

4) IRL is listed on three foreign stock exchanges

Aside from that, at around U$660m in market cap, LionGold is the right size for this deal, IRL could do with a partner to put Ollachea into production and Peru is fast becoming an attractive destination for Asian capital (a dozen deals to point to as evidence). Now here's Reuters:

Oct 4 (Reuters) - Singapore-listed gold miner LionGold Corp Ltd, whose shares are suspended by the Singapore Exchange, said it is at an advanced stage of negotiations to acquire a stake in a company listed on three foreign stock exchanges.

But the unnamed target firm, which has a producing gold mine as well as gold mines under development, is considering if the acquisition should continue in view of the suspension, LionGold said in a stock exchange filing.

The target company was introduced to LionGold by Jennings Capital Inc, a Canada-based investment dealer, LionGold said.

The Singapore Exchange Ltd suspended trading in three stocks on Friday, warning the market may not be fully informed after a plunge in their share prices, with one falling more than 60 percent. (Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Rachel Armstrong)

10/3/13

you stock promoter types should stick to brown-nosing people who give a toss about receiving positive copy (hint: not me). Or maybe you've decided not to throw puffball questions at the rich and famous in exchange for crumbs off their tables? If so, welcome to the real world and tell people the truth about assholes who rip people off in this sordid sector instead of sucking up to them.

10/2/13

Unconfirmed reports reach your humble scribe that indicate Nyrstar saw three of its workforce kidnapped at the Campo Morado mine in Guerrero State, Mexico in the last few days. Apparently they've now been freed but there's no word on what sort of exchange took place (if any) between company and kidnappers. Your author has a mail in with Nyrstar people and we'll report back on the company's position as and when they reply (yup, no word yet, strange how they'd want to keep this sort of thing quiet no?).

We should add at this point that Guerrero State is one of the worst places in the country for narco-type criminal organizations and it's not the first time this sort of incident has affected a mining company working the area. And as previous owners HDI know, the Campo Morado property was always a....how shall we say it?... a controversial one.

...and in about 10 days' time, they'll have the right to sell another block tranche. And y'know, it's just possible that $70m (or $60m come the time) worth of shares in a stock they've already started to abandon might come in useful, what with the shopping trip announced yesterday. The "Will HOC sell GORO?" question ranks alongside "Is the Pope Catholic?" and "Is it possible to encounter orsine fecal matter in large tree covered expanses of wilderness?" for the level of insight necessary to obtain the correct answer. GORO has been one of the easiest shorts to call in the history of digging rocks out of the ground, but I'm not covering yet.

UPDATE: IKN is again reminded how much spoonfeeding is required by your average dumbass desk trader:

Morons: They live among us. Cue the music!

UPDATE 2: A message for "The Investment Doctor" at Sinking Alpha: Plagiarism is not big, it's not clever and if you rip off this humble scribe in the same way again I will sue your fucking scrawny lying cheating ass. Fucker.

STOP TEH STOOOPID, stop reading yesterday's rumour caused by some over-lunch hack with no idea of what they're talking about, stop relying on half-assed sources of news and catch up with the rest of us.

Basic fact: Las Bambas will be sold to a Chinese mining company, period. As in 100% of the asset, no JV with the Aaron Regent, no minority with Newmont, no London-based capital. The only question remaining is which nameplate gets to be put on the company front door, which will undoubtedly be decided somewhere deep in the Politburo rather than in Zug.

10/1/13

SCOTTSDALE, AZ--(Marketwired - Oct 1, 2013) - International Minerals Corporation (TSX: IMZ) (IMZ.SW) (the "Company" or "IMZ") announces that it has entered into a binding arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement Agreement") with Hochschild Mining plc. ("Hochschild") pursuant to which Hochschild will acquire IMZ, primarily for IMZ's 40% interest in the jointly-owned (Hochschild 60%) Peruvian assets: the Pallancata silver mine and the Inmaculada gold-silver development project.

Hochschild will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of IMZ (other than those that it already owns) by way of a court-approved Plan of Arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Yukon).

Pursuant to the Arrangement Agreement, each IMZ shareholder (other than Hochschild in respect of the cash) will receive consideration comprising:

US$2.38 (approximately C$2.46) per common share in cash; and

One common share of a new Canadian public company ("SpinCo") for each common share of IMZ.

The following non-Peruvian assets and liabilities of IMZ will be transferred to SpinCo at closing:

IMZ's remaining cash and receivables (estimated at approximately US$58 million); and

Bill Reid cashing in his 400,000 25c options now that he's not employed by GORO any longer, with no need to disclose the sales and getting out before the Hochschild big dumpage later this month? Odds are strong.

Silver Bull Resources (SVBL) (SVB.to) announced the results of its PEA study on the Sierra Mojada silver project in Mexico this morning. And sadly, yet again we're forced to wade through a whole page of "optimized" (i.e. stupid) financial assumptions so that the company can justify an eye-catching headline number. SVBL hasn't received the memo that's been going around, the one that says that people who pay your oversized executive salaries are sick and tired and bored of bullshit PEAs. What SVBL gave us today doesn't attract anyone to the project, in fact it's quite the opposite. You might be able to pull the wool of the eyes of the mouthbreather end of the market, but anyone who can use a calculator is going to give it the once-over and think "Me no give moolah to bullshitters. Me no sponsor people who fake it from day one. Me no fund another bunch of junior scallywags. Me burned too many times by this kind of crap."

Just as one example, Silver Bull decides to use U$23.50/oz for silver and U$0.95/lb for zinc in its base case, and then after applying a 5% discount gets a headline-making post-tax IRR of 23.1% whereas me, I use a real base case of TODAY'S FUCKING SPOT PRICES and finish with a 14% IRR, even before laughing at the 5% discount and remembering how serious companies will use 8% disc. Fuck your base case, you bullshitters.

Or maybe you'd like me to tell you how I really feel about the subject.

UPDATE: IKN goes into public service mode by happily receiving the hatemail of the mouthbreathers so that you don't have to. Keep 'em coming guys, I need as many laughs as possible on days like this.

We note with interest that PRE is buying PMG in an all-cash deal and to fund the buyout, PRE is raising large-scale debt (why PMG wasn't interested in PRE paper is beyond me, not). To quote from the NR last night:

The total purchase price on a fully diluted basis, including assumed net debt, and excluding funding of ExploreCo, will be approximately Cdn. $1.6 billion . Financing of the acquisition will be accomplished by cash on hand and bank credit facilities including a committed U.S. $1.3 billion short term bank facility, which the Company expects to refinance after the acquisition is completed.

Just out of interest, we'd like to point out what can happen to Serafino Iacono companies in Colombia when they decide to fund their activities by taking on a heap of debt:

Here we see the dollar values of copper exports from Chile in the first six months of each year, compared to the value of every else exported by Chile in the same period. And be clear, not just all other metals but all other everything; gold, apples, textiles, avocados, horses, armchairs, fish, everything.

And for even more context, the data came from a report in Chile's Diario Financiero this weekend that trumpeted to its Chilean readership that the country was now less dependent on copper than before. I mean, hey, just 50% of the cash generated from exports from one single product instead of 55% or 60%. There's reason to cheer.

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